Seriously, I am very disappointed in the internet's selection of inspired crab quiche recipes. I have never made a quiche before by myself and so, when I was recently gifted with some lovely fresh mud crab, I went looking for a base recipe to start me off. Everything was lousy. Here is what I decided to do!
INGREDIENTS:
Pastry:
- 3.5 cups spelt flour
- 250g butter
- 2 table spoons cold water
- 2 cold eggs
- 5 eggs
- 2 spring onions (sliced on diagonal)
- 2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 cup fresh cooked mud crab flesh (or other crab!)
- 1 small wheel of Camembert
- 1/2 cup double cream
- Rind of a lemon
- 1 celery stalk (thinly sliced on diagonal)
- 1 small sweet potato (thinly sliced)
- 3 good handfuls or so of spinach leaves
- 1 handful of chopped fresh parsley
- 1 handful of chopped fresh dill
- 1/2 nutmeg, grated
- Pinch each of salt and pepper
- Drizzle of olive oil
METHOD:
Pastry:
- Throw all ingredients in food processor and blitz in short bursts until combined!
- Roll together into a ball and place in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour
- Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
- Roll out on lightly floured surface to desired thickness (mine was about 0.5cm thick and, even after lining a large flan dish, I had enough left over to line another small flan and use for something else) :)
- Grease a large flan dish and line with pastry. Prick some air holes in pastry and weigh down with rice or other grain/weight and bake for 10-15 minutes
Quiche
- Gently fry the shallots, garlic, celery and sweet potato in the olive oil for a few minutes until softened on a medium heat.
- Add the spinach and cover, cooking on a low heat until spinach is wilted.
- Spread the cooked vegetables over the baked pastry.
- Sprinkle the crab meat over the vegetables.
- Beat eggs in a bowl and add the cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg, herbs, lemon rind and Camembert.
- Add the egg mix to the flan dish.
- Grate a little table cheese on the top
- Bake for half an hour at 180 degrees Celsius.